Losing Iraq

To the Editor:

In "Who Lost Iraq?" (September/October 2007), James Dobbins surveys the accountability of U.S. leaders, Congress, intelligence networks, the military, the press, and political parties, as well as the Iraqis themselves. He concludes, "In truth, there is more than enough blame to go around." Curiously enough, however, Dobbins spares himself.

In America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, the much ballyhooed team-written book he directed for RAND in 2003, Dobbins' group studied seven cases of U.S. efforts at democratization to better understand the challenges of an eighth -- Iraq. Seven of the eight principal "lessons" they derived from their research had to do with the features of U.S. occupation. Only one lesson dealt with the character of the local peoples, and it had to do with the relatively unimportant question of how justice is handled with respect to the ancien régime. Nothing in the RAND study would have dissuaded Washington from invading Iraq. Indeed, its reasoning might have provided reassurance that a beefed-up and prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq would eventually yield success.

In 2007, Dobbins led another RAND study, The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building, and its focus, too, was on how external actors might best provide soldiers, police, instruction on the organization of a national judiciary, a democratic political system, and an economic development plan. Host populations subject to these manipulations are apparently assumed to be in compliance with what outside actors propose. Neither the 2003 nor the 2007 study considers powerful nationalist feelings, which might oppose external control, or internal divisions, which make a social contract unlikely -- meaningful variables worthy of study. Emphasis remained on the tasks that the occupying forces should seek to fulfill.

It was just such flawed thinking that contributed in significant measure to the calamity of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Yet instead of engaging in self-examination, Dobbins faults "decision-making within the Bush administration," more especially a "top-down approach," that is, "management models that emphasized inspiration and guidance from above and loyalty and compliance from below," for the failure to see the reality on the ground in the Middle East. "The problem was less one of flawed intelligence than of flawed use of intelligence by policymakers," Dobbins asserts. This is to some extent true. But how good would the vision in Washington ultimately have been had it been better informed by the upbeat how-to approach of the RAND team?

The bottom line is that Dobbins remains faithful to the Bush doctrine's vision of global market democratization imposed by force, only with a caveat: it may be a bumpy ride in its initial phases. In other words, Dobbins remains committed to a vision of U.S. progressive imperialism. In his eyes, preemption, democratization, and nation building are very much proper tools of policy. Presumably, next time his team at RAND should have its insights heeded.

Who lost Iraq? In intellectual terms, if its 2003 study is the evidence, the RAND team played its part in the defeat. Yet Dobbins is at it again with the implied assurance that, if called on, his group could contribute its "expert advice" in a "structured debate" that allowed "disciplined dissent" in the considered hope that in the future, U.S. military interventions may succeed. Yes, we have "lost Iraq." What, thanks to Dobbins and company, will we lose next?

TONY SMITH, Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science, Tufts University, and the author of A Pact With the Devil: Washington's Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise.

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To the Editor:

James Dobbins provides a useful overview of the national security challenges facing our political leaders in the wake of the "loss" of Iraq. However, his article disappointingly sidesteps two key issues. He avoids answering his own (rhetorical yet important) question: Who lost Iraq? And he does not address whether the United States' national security bureaucracy possessed the requisite expertise and capability to ensure a stable aftermath to the March 2003 invasion or whether the challenges and the unknowns were insurmountable.

A dispassionate analysis of who bears responsibility for the failure in Iraq is currently impossible, and the jury is out on the administration's "grand strategy" for the wider Middle East. History will not look kindly on those who oversaw the preinvasion interagency process that precluded contingency planning for bleak scenarios and managed the early months of the occupation with scant regard for the lessons from the numerous U.S. and UN-led peace operations in the 1990s. Will tiptoeing around individual responsibility contribute to getting it right next time? Will heads never roll despite the devastating blunders in the foreign policy and intelligence arenas?

Dobbins also overlooks the capabilities of the U.S. national security bureaucracy, not least its postconflict reconstruction capability. If adequately consulted and engaged, could the best minds in the Defense Department, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other agencies have put together plans and processes that would have helped achieve a stable postinvasion environment and orderly political transition?